Analytics, or business intelligence, helps businesses make sense,even visualize their data so it’s more useful to them.

IBM, like other tech giants, has been on a bit of an analytics bender in the past few years, buying a slew of analytics companies, most recently Algorithmics last fall, but also SPSS, Unica and others.

Raj Aggarwal, CEO of Localytics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based web analytics startup, said his company’s prior relationship with Unica, which IBM bought in 2010, brought Localytics into IBM’s orbit. That relationship is why Localytics entered the IBM SmartCamp competition rather than one of the other startup beauty contests. Winners of the regional SmartCamp events then vie for the global entrepreneur title.

IBM holds several SmartCamp contests for startups around the world. The nine regional finalists will meet with IBM and venture capital companies in San Francisco next week. Winners don’t get prize money, but IBM does provide them with resources — hardware, software — and, perhaps more importantly, access to experts in the company and in the VC community.

Aggarwal said meeting experts at IBM was the biggest perk for Localytics. “They introduce us to people, set up meetings. It’s hard for a small company to do that on its own,” he said. IBM gets a lot out of this too: Access to small, nimble companies focusing on a vertical niche that complements IBM’s more broadly focused software.

Most of these analytics applications are extremely focused on a vertical market — something that IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and other big vendors encourage in their ISV partners. The giant IT platform vendors see small, agile companies like these as strategic partners, filling gaps in their own portfolios. One might speculate that SmartCloud competitions give IBM, which has purchased some 70 companies since 2003, a way to identify potential acquisition targets.